Recent Posts

I love the notions of the
daily and what they are trying to achieve. I think at it’s
core they truly want to do something risky, innovative, and
something that was not possible before. There’s a lot to love,
but there’s also a lot to dislike in the execution.

It’s against the real time nature of the web

Even delivering an “update” daily is just too slow for the way
the web works. Setting any sort of defined delivery period is
just silly. The web isn’t on a set time schedule, but an
always-on network of flowing information. That’s the real special
sauce of what’s happening in the media industry.

The flow of information is no longer constrained by time, it is
instantaneous and transcends time itself. By fighting against
that, we’re taking a step backward. Many people claim that
the initial wait to download is too long and I agree, but the
biggest problem is the day long wait for an update of any size.
It’s the time period, not just the size that is bothersome.

The Daily and apps in general are also against the real time
nature of software. If the team at The Daily wants to update
their software, it should be available instantly whenever anyone
visits the site again. It should not go through the app model of
sending an update to Apple and eventually all platforms, then
requiring a delay and new download from the user.

Read The HIG

The human interface doesn’t feel like something meant for the
iPad. It’s just awkward and uses button controls, especially on
the bottom that are out of place. Each content app should be
different, but it should feel like it’s within a consistent human
interface.

The fullscreen feel of The Daily is just weird too. I get the
point, but it just feels out of place. Flipboard did a good
job of “effects”, but keeping things elegant. The Daily
should try to do the same. Instead, things don’t feel
readable, but more like an old school CD-Rom.

Subscriptions Are The Solution To a Problem That No
Longer Needs Solving

Subscriptions and paying for content are a solution to the old
economic model of newspapers/content. It cost a lot to print and
deliver content via traditional media methods. Every night a
newspaper had to be printed and then physically delivered. In
order to do this, it just cost a lot of money.

In the digital world, delivery costs are minimal, eliminating the
need to have subscriptions costs cover them. In short, the
problem of covering the cost of physical delivery no longer
exists, therefore its solution, paid subscriptions, no longer
needs to exist.

Not Optimized For The Social Nature Of The Web

The Daily just isn’t optimized for the new nature of the web
which is now all about social. Social is not a bolt on aka adding
share buttons. The commenting included inside of the Daily is
interesting, but I would take it another level to show the entire
conversation around a piece of content and also add geolocation
to it.

It’s time to reinvent media completely, not slightly add
something new. Gawker has the right idea by keeping
relevant/highly shared content surfaced over a chronological
order of articles. Social and the presentation of the daily
should be one in the same.

Too Susceptible To Churn

The Daily has one main point of access, which is through the
user’s home screen. If the daily fails to deliver, the app will
get deleted off the home screen, and will never return. On the
other hand, if it were web based it would be easy to navigate to
a site directly later on.

Going to the app store and re-downloading it? Very very
difficult. Being 100% reliant upon the app model makes content
providers highly susceptible to churn.

Images Of Text

The articles are designed for print first and the web as an
afterthought. Essentially, the articles are exported from
InDesign or something like it as images and put into a simple app
builder.

I don’t want intense interaction, but I want to feel like I’m
doing more than interacting with a glorified PDF reader. The iPad
and the shift we’re seeing in media isn’t about making
incremental improvements, but rethinking the entire solution as a
whole.

The Ads Are Its Best Example

The ads in the daily are absolutely awesome. They aren’t
interruptive, have taste, and not “too interactive”. iAds are the
world’s best Flash ads… done in HTML5. The Daily decided to not
use iAds, which was really smart. They took the essence of print,
but brought it to the web with something new.

May A Million Dailies Bloom

The Daily right now seems ahead of its time, but it will
eventually be something we look back on as common place. Slate
started out being forward thinking, but eventually the Slate
model of content delivered over the web became a standard. The
same thing will happen to the Daily. Delivering content and
tailoring it primarily for tablet devices will become the
standard, not something special.

My challenge to Rupert Murdoch and “The Daily”

Make a version of the daily that lives in the
browser on
tablet devices. Provide the same native like experience of an app
and own your user. See which version is the better business
after 6 months. (I’m only suggesting tablet devices and their
browsers, NOT the traditional desktop with browsers there such as
Firefox).

Use the Onswipe platform to take care of all the digital aspects
of The Daily in the browser- making it work, delivery,
functionality, and everything. It will be browser based and work
on all tablets + smart phones out of the box.

This is what we do at Onswipe and the process works the same for
publishers whether they are personal bloggers or ambitious
enterprises like The Daily. It’s robust and fully customizable.
All the Daily needs to do is produce awesome content, which it is
already doing.

I’m not a huge favor of being a paid subscription only, but I’ll
give you the benefit of the doubt. We’re toying around with
subscriptions paywalls. Outside of the processing fees, go ahead
and keep way more than Apple will give you.

Most importantly, get actual subscriber data. In the physical
print world, having the data of your subscriber is very
important. You get zero subscriber data with Apple’s solution.
With Onswipe, you can get more data than you ever imagined on a
subscriber.

What about the ads? The ads in the daily now are pretty awesome
and a step in the right direction. We’re doing something even
better that readers will love, advertisers will lust after, and
The Daily will profit with.

Ads have traditionally sucked on the web, especially compared
with the beauty+elegance of print. Let’s combine that
beauty/elegance with slight interactivity from the web.

I have an early early prototype of a web version of the Daily
sitting in my hands as we speak and it rocks…

——

I don’t know what the future holds for The Daily. This is just
the first version and there’s a fair chance they will overcome
its shortcomings. Rupert is a smart guy, the content team at the
daily is top notch, and I would not count them out.